1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to accessing device driver memory through a high level programming language.
2. Background Information
Many types of devices require device drivers for the operation of the device. Such devices may include displays and keyboards. A device driver is executable software that provides a programming interface between a high level programming language and the device. A device driver typically requires a portion of memory to be allocated for its use in providing data to or receiving data from the device it controls.
With regard to at least some high level languages (e.g., Java), such languages typically require a “call” to a device driver that may be written in a “native” language such as C. The high level application generally uses a data structure to provide data to, or receive data from, a corresponding data structure in the device driver memory. The two data structures may not be directly compatible and thus, a mapping between the two may be needed. Mapping a data structure from a high level language to the data structure in the device driver memory can be computationally intensive. Additionally, the calls that permit the context change between the high level application and the device driver undesirably introduce latency.